These Small Hours
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: All the moments of a life - a story in 100 drabbles
1. Light

**Author's Note: **This was inspired by fanfic100's challenge: write 100 drabbles for a pairing or fandom. Naturally, I chose Clois, and as an added challenge for myself, I'm trying to write a coherent story out of the drabbles. And, while drabbles are traditionally 100 words, I've been lucky so far to keep everything under 1000 words.

No spoilers, takes off where _Salvation_ ends.

**.073 Light**

She can't help remembering the feel of Clark's lips on her own. That last kiss, in the alley, was completely different from all their others. This one had felt like goodbye. And that scares her.

When the skies light up like it's the Fourth of July, she knows in her heart that something is wrong. She barely remembers running through the streets of Metropolis, doesn't even know where she's going until she gets there.

The light in the sky is fading as she finds him, lying in a crumpled heap in the middle of the street. She can just about feel her heart stop at the sight of the dagger protruding from his chest, and she rips her coat off, using it to staunch the blood coming from the wound without a second thought.

"Don't give up on me, Smallville," she whispers in his ear, as she drags him off the ground to lean against her chest.

She dials her cell phone one-handed, growling in frustration as she waits for Oliver to answer her call. When he doesn't pick up, she swears, slamming the phone shut and throwing it against the side of the building in a sudden surge of fury, watching it break into a dozen pieces.

"Don't look at me like that," she tells the unconscious man bleeding in her arms. "It's not like I can call 911 for you, have you go to a hospital. What would I tell them, the Blur is dying?"

A sob catches in her throat as the implications of that statement hit her, and she angrily wipes away the tears that threaten to cloud her vision.

"You are not allowed to die on me, you hear?" she snaps, glaring down at him.

But, his eyes remain stubbornly closed, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. The dagger that she'd packed her coat around is almost mocking her, seeming to glow from within with its own strange light, and before she can think about what she's doing, she grabs the dagger and pulls it out of his chest. She hurls the dagger away, watching as it's swallowed up by the darkness that surrounded them.

"You don't get to die," she repeats, pulling him in tight against her chest, even as she wonders what in the world she's going to do.

She can't take him to the hospital, and the one person who could help isn't answering his phone. She's practically helpless, sitting here in the rain watching the man she loves as he dies, and she hates that feeling more than anything in the world. She wants to scream, to break something, but she just hangs on tight, feeling his weak, unsteady heartbeat underneath her hands.

"I'm not mad that you didn't tell me earlier," she says, talking now just to fill the silence. "I mean, how could I be? It's not like I share everything about my life with you, after all."

He takes a sudden, gasping breath, and she holds her breath, anxiously. But his heart continues to beat, his chest keeps rising and falling, and she lets out her own breath in shaky relief.

"Maybe we should though, you know?" she goes on, as though nothing had interrupted her. "We said no secrets, maybe we should give it a real shot. What do you say?"

Shifting him in her arms, she peeks under the edge of her coat, checking on his stab wound. Then, slow smile spreads across her face as she watches the last bits of the wound disappear, his skin knitting itself together, seamlessly. And when his breathing hitches, again, she looks down to see his eyes opening, slowly, focusing on her.

"Welcome back," she whispers, bending down to kiss him, gently, as the rain stops and the sun breaks through the clouds.


	2. Shapes

**.041 Shapes**

He remembers fighting with Zod on the roof. Remembers struggling over the dagger, remembers fighting to live. And then he remembers giving up, knowing that the only way to banish Zod and save his home, his people, was to die.

It had seemed so simple at the time, but then there was a tearing pain in his chest and he stumbled backward, hitting the low wall that bordered the edge of the roof. He'd glimpsed, for a just a brief second, a stunned look on the Kandorian's face, and then Zod was being dragged away by the energy from the Book of Rao, still screaming defiance as he disappeared.

And then he fell.

The wind whistles past his ears as he hurtles through the air, and he has a brief moment of regret that he never really learned to fly. Too late now, of course, he thinks, in a flash of dark humor.

When he hits the ground, it's painful in ways that he never could have imagined. But, to his unending surprise, he can still feel – feel the hard concrete beneath his back, feel the cold rain falling on his face, feel his life slipping away as he bleeds to death in a dark alley.

He'd half-expected the fall to kill him immediately. He's human now, thanks to the blue kryptonite dagger, and no human could have survived that kind of fall. But, maybe the dagger didn't work as fast as he thought, maybe there's just enough Kryptonian left in him to let him live long enough to watch as the last of his birth planet disappears, forever.

It's a sobering thought. He's known for years that he's the last of his kind, but now that it's really true, he finds himself grieving for the possibilities of what might have been. And he wonders, in some dim, dark corner of his mind, if Krypton is going to end with him, here, in this dark, cold alley.

There's a part of him that wants to reach up with the last of his strength and pull the dagger out, to let himself start healing, to survive. But the sky is still illuminated by the energy of the Book of Rao, and he knows that pulling the dagger out means that there'll be nothing keeping him from being sucked into the vortex. He lets out a shaky breath and lets his hand fall back to the pavement. The dagger stays embedded with his chest.

His vision is going gray at the edges; everything is soft and blurry. He's tired, so tired, and he gives up the fight to keep his eyes from closing. It's still raining, getting colder by the minute, but he barely feels it. Can barely feel anything, any more, and so that's why he's surprised by a rush of heat suddenly centered on his chest.

He can feel himself moving, the world spinning around him even with his eyes closed. When the spinning stops, he's leaning against something soft and warm, and he can feel a puff of warm air against the side of his face.

"Don't give up on me, Smallville," a familiar, beloved voice murmurs in his ear.

As much as he wants to just give up, he can't not obey that voice, so he hangs on. He clings to the sound of her voice like a lifeline, listens as she orders him not to die. He can hear her struggling not to cry and he wants to comfort her, but he can't even open his eyes, let alone tell her that everything's going to be okay.

Because it's not going to be okay. He's dying, and there's nothing either of them can do about it. He just regrets that he never got the chance to really say goodbye. All he really wants is to just open his eyes, just see her face one last time.

There's a sharp, sudden pain in his chest, and he wonders if he's been stabbed, again. But, then the pain fades, replaced by a feeling of warmth that spreads throughout his entire body.

_'This is it,'_ he thinks. _'Lois, I'm sorry.'_

But, he's not fading away. Things are getting sharper, almost overwhelming, so he focuses on the sound of her voice, lets it lead him back to her. Slowly, he opens his eyes, everything blurry except for her face above his, her eyes lighting up when she sees him awake.

"Welcome back," she murmurs, and he can hear the joy in her voice.


	3. Breakfast

**.056 Breakfast**

"It's two in the morning," Clark calls out, from where Lois had parked him on the couch a few seconds after they walked through the door of her apartment. "What are you doing in there?"

"I'm making breakfast," comes the reply from the kitchen.

"You can't cook," Clark points out, rather sensibly, he thinks, as he hears a loud crash from the other room.

"Oh, this I can," Lois shoots back. "Even Lucy wants seconds of these."

"Going to give me a hint?" Clark asks, figuring that he should prepare himself for whatever is about to come out of that kitchen.

"Live dangerously, Smallville!" Lois says, and he can hear the laughter in her voice.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Clark mutters, a hastily-muffled snort from the kitchen telling him that he wasn't as quiet as he'd hoped.

"So, how'd you know where to find me?" he asks, finally, after they'd lapsed into silence for a few minutes.

"I don't – I don't really know," Lois admits, a few seconds later. "I just knew that something was wrong, and that I had to find you. So I started running, and there you were."

"Well, I'm glad you did," Clark tells her. "I'd probably be dead right now if it wasn't for you."

There's a silence from the kitchen, one that stretches for far too long before Clark starts to get suspicious. He's about to get up off the couch and investigate when he hears the clattering of pots and pans start up, again.

"I thought I was going to lose you, out there."

Lois's voice is so quiet, he can barely hear her over the sounds coming from the kitchen. He turns his head and peers through the wall, his x-ray vision showing him Lois standing in front of the stove, staring off into space as she absently stirred something in a bowl.

"Lois?" he prompts, gently, and she jerks, startled, at the sound of his voice.

"You were just lying there, and you were bleeding," she goes on, and Clark can see her blinking back tears. "And, god knows, I can't just call an ambulance to pick you up-"

"They'd probably look at you funny if you told them that your friendly, neighborhood alien needed medical attention," Clark interjects, and he can see the beginnings of a smile blossom on Lois's face.

"Exactly," she says. "And, speaking of, I don't suppose you know some sort of doctor, or coroner, or someone with any sort of medical training? Someone I can call next time this sort of thing happens?"

"Well, it's not like I was planning on there being a this time," Clark points out.

"Humor me," Lois says, coming to the doorway and giving him a quick, tight smile.

She disappears, again, and Clark has to resist the urge to follow her. Lois had threatened to hurt him if he moved from the couch, and Clark doesn't doubt that she won't hesitate to carry out her threat.

"There are a couple of people who can help," he tells her.

"I want names and phone numbers," Lois says, as the noise in the kitchen starts up, again. "I felt helpless, you know," she continues, a few seconds later. "You were dying, and I couldn't do anything about it. I hate that feeling."

"You saved my life," Clark reminds her. "That's hardly what I'd call helpless."

"Still," Lois goes on, "I don't ever want to be in that kind of situation, ever again, got it?"

"Got it," Clark reassures her, but Lois isn't done.

"I mean it," she insists. "You don't get to leave me. Not like that."

"Not ever," Clark says, quietly.

Lois appears in the doorway, then, a plate in her hands. Clark can see tear tracks on her face as she walks over, but he just scoots over on the couch, making room for her as she sits down beside him.

"Those actually look edible," he comments, looking at the chocolate-chip pancakes she's got piled high on the plate.

"Keep making fun and you're not going to get any," Lois threatens, but her smile takes any sting out of the words as she holds the plate out to him.

Clark takes a pancake and rolls it up, taking a tentative bite out of it. His next bite is bigger, accompanied by Lois's knowing smirk as she takes a pancake for herself.

"Told you they were good," she says, and in answer, Clark drapes an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest as she snuggles up to him.


	4. Thunder

**.069 Thunder**

It's the roar of thunder that wakes her up, followed closely by a blinding flash of lightning that illuminates the entire apartment through the window, the light searing through her closed eyelids. A few seconds later, she hears another kind of thundering, as someone starts pounding on her door.

"Hold your freaking horses," she growls under her breath as she gets up from the couch.

They'd fallen asleep where they were sitting, curled up together on the couch, and a quick glance at the clock shows that they'd barely been asleep for an hour. Well, she'd been asleep; Clark, somehow, is still asleep, his head pillowed on his arm as he slumps against the arm of the couch. Lois knows he's got to be beyond exhausted to be able to sleep through all the racket, and she vows to kill whoever's at the door.

She jerks open the door, impatiently, startling the man standing on the other side. He has his fist raised to start pounding, yet again, but he lowers his arm and even backs up a step when he sees Lois's glare directed his way.

"Can I help you?" she grits out, blocking the doorway with her body when the man attempts to look inside.

"I'm here to see Clark Kent," the man says, brusquely. "I know he's here."

"And if he is?" Lois asks, her voice chilly as she stares down the tall man.

He looks vaguely familiar, but she can't quite put her finger on where she knows him from. She knows that part of that is because she's tired; if she hadn't been so wound up, earlier, she'd probably still be asleep next to Clark, no matter who was at the door.

"I have business with Mr. Kent," the man replies, breaking into her thoughts. "Urgent business."

That voice is still irritatingly familiar, and after a few seconds of digging through her memory, she places him. Carter Hall, one of the founding members of the Justice League that she'd written about a few months earlier. He looks nothing like his prison mug shot, which is probably why she didn't recognize him.

"Superhero business?" she asks, softly, a challenging note in her voice.

She doesn't know the guy's relationship with Clark, but if he's here to hassle him, he's going to be in for a surprise. Hall's eyes widen, slightly, narrowing with suspicion a few moments later, but she's not going to back down.

"Lois, it's okay." Clark's voice is quiet behind her, and she looks back to see him standing at her shoulder, looking at the man still standing in the hallway. "What's up, Carter?"

"What about her?" Hall asks, tipping his head toward Lois, shooting Clark a significant look.

"I trust Lois with everything," Clark replies, slinging an arm over her shoulders before she can say anything.

They share a quick look, and then Lois steps back, letting Hall move past her into the apartment. He paces as she shuts the door, full of pent-up energy.

"What's wrong?" Clark asks, without preamble.

"Your buddy, Queen, is missing in action," Hall replies, shortly. "Watchtower lost contact with him right in the middle of his mission. He said there was something coming after him, but it wasn't Kandorians."

"They're all gone," Clark reassures him. "When was the last time anyone had contact with Oliver?"

"Around midnight," Hall tells him. "Transmitters are down, satellites are offline, and it took us this long just to track you down."

"Let's get going," Clark says, grabbing his battered trench coat off the back of the couch. "Lois-"

"You do your thing, and I'll do mine," she replies, pushing down any worry for Oliver's safety. There's nothing she can do for him, and constantly thinking about it is only going to drive her insane.

"I'm going to head in to work and think of a story for tonight that doesn't involve the words 'alien-sucking vortex'," she continues.

"Does there have to be a story?" Hall asks. "Can't you just keep everything quiet?"

"Keep it quiet?" Lois echoes, incredulously. "Guess you missed the part where the sky lit up like people were lighting off fireworks?"

"Dr. Fate was right about you," Hall says, a wry smile on his face. "Ready, Kent?" he continues, maddeningly leaving her in suspense.

"See you later," Clark tells her, leaning down and kissing her, gently.

Lois deepens the kiss, holding on until she hears an impatient grumble from behind her, and she hides a smirk at the irritated look on Hall's face.

"Stay safe," she tells Clark, watching as the men walk out the door.


	5. Yellow

**.013 Yellow**

The lamp on her desk is flickering when she turns it on. She taps the bulb a couple of times with her fingernail until it stops, casting a soft, yellow glow over her desk. The rest of the bullpen is empty, save for the light coming from the city editor's office, where she knows Perry White is hard at work.

Lois loves this time of the morning, before anyone else has come into work and everything is quiet and peaceful. No noise, no interruptions, just her, her computer, and the beginnings of a story. Clark teases her about being a workaholic, but he doesn't know how often she comes in early, just to be alone with her thoughts.

Besides, she needs the work right now, to keep her mind off other things. Like whether Oliver is hurt, or if he's even alive, if Clark and Hall are walking into a trap, if she's going to lose Clark after all.

She pushes that thought out of her mind, immediately. Clark, as the Blur, has shown to be practically invulnerable. She's seen it, as much as he'd let her see in the past, anyway. And she watched him heal from a nearly-fatal stab wound, earlier. Clark is going to be fine.

But, she can't push the nagging sense of unease away. She tries to focus on her story, but all she gets are a few paragraphs of gibberish before she gives up, staring at her screen in frustration.

"Writer's block, Lane?" a voice asks from over her shoulder, and she looks up to see Perry staring at her computer.

"Something like that, Chief," she replies, smirking at the irritated scowl on his face.

The older man had said how much he hated the nickname, but Lois can't resist needling him with it.

"Working on the story about that strange light?" Perry asks, and Lois knows she's got to sell her prospective story to him, if she expects any of the higher editors to buy it.

"I've got a contact at StarLabs that I've been talking to," she tells him. "He called the phenomenon an aurora."

"An aurora," Perry repeats, skeptically. "As in the Northern Lights. Which appear at the North Pole. Which we are nowhere near."

"That's what makes it so unusual," Lois lies, keeping a straight face.

She hates lying to Perry, especially after all they'd gone through chasing the story about the Red Queen, but it can't be helped. There's no way to explain the vortex without explaining about the Kandorians, and she and Clark had agreed that it was a story the public just didn't need to know about, yet.

Perry finally relents, going back to his office to let her continue working, and Lois sighs quietly in relief. Turning her attention back to the blinking cursor on her computer screen, she gets out a little bit more of her story, but it's no better than the rest. She's going to wind up scrapping practically everything she's written, so far, and she hates the thought of having wasted so much time.

But, try as she might, she just can't stop worrying. She knows it's useless, knows there's nothing that she can do for Oliver that Clark and Hall can't do, but that doesn't stop her from thinking about everything that could go wrong.

She's about to give up on her story and head back to the apartment to wait for news, when her phone rings, and she picks it up with an impatient, "Yes?"

"We've got him, Lois," Clark says, and she lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Oliver's safe."


End file.
